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15-Year-Old Combatant to Face Guantanamo Trial Three Years Later
By Haider Rizvi
01/08/06 "OneWorld"
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UNITED NATIONS - When the terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay
prison are brought before United States military judges next week,
among them will be a minor captured as an "enemy combatant" by the
U.S. army in Afghanistan some three years ago.
Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, faces imminent trial by military
commission at Guantanamo Bay for war crimes he had allegedly
committed at the age of 15, his lawyers say.
"This would be the first such trial of an individual under the age
of 18 at the time of alleged offense in modern history," says
American University law professor Richard Wilson who, along with
Munir Ahmed, also a law professor, represents Khadr.
Khadr was born in Canada in September 1986 and is therefore a
citizen of that country. He and his family left Kabul, Afghanistan
in October 2001, shortly after his 15th birthday, as U.S. forces
started military action in that country, according to the two
lawyers.
Khadr was later captured by U.S. armed forces during a July 2002
skirmish near the town of Khost in which he allegedly lobbed a hand
grenade that killed a U.S. soldier. He was then transferred to the
U.S. air base at Bagram where his lawyers say interrogation,
torture, and other severe mistreatment began immediately, although
he was hospitalized and recovering from wounds.
Khadr was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in October 2002, and since
then he has been held there in solitary confinement. In the face of
intense criticism from human rights groups, the U.S. Defense
Department released many children in January 2004, but Khadr was not
one of them.
By then the military, according to Wilson, had decided that any
child over the age of 16 at the time of his arrival at Guantanamo
Bay would be treated as an adult for all purposes.
"Had Khadr not been held for more than two months in Bagram, when he
was 15, before being transferred to Guantanamo, presumably he would
have been treated as a child too and sent home," says Wilson, who
claims that Khadr has been severely mistreated and continuously
interrogated, without charges.
Khadr did not have access to counsel until July 2004 when Wilson and
Ahmed entered into representation of him on pro bono basis, Wilson
says, adding, "our appearance was limited at that time to
representation in habeas corpus proceedings arising from the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision in Rasul vs. Bush in 2004, which held that
Guantanamo detainees had a right to access to the courts."
Now more than a year after that decision, the government continues
to argue that the U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over the
detainees, and refuses to provide even the most basic information
about names and countries of origin for a majority of the detainees.
Wilson and Ahmed say they have visited Khadr only five times over
the past 18 months because access is "extremely limited" due to
court orders and other restrictions imposed by the military.
Two months ago, Khadr was finally charged with four alleged "war
crimes," which also include "murder by an unprivileged combatant."
Khadr's lawyers say they have reviewed the records of trials held by
international tribunals, beginning with Nuremberg after World War
II, and have found no record of trial of a juvenile under the age of
18 for war crimes in any tribunal, including those for the former
Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, or East Timor.
Last week, Wilson and Ahmed sent a letter to Kofi Annan, the U.N.
Secretary General, and Karin Sham Poo, Annan's special
representative for Children and Armed Conflict, asking for U.N.
intervention into Khadr's case.
"This unprecedented action cries out for your intervention," they
wrote. "We request that your office fully investigate, document, and
denounce this development."
They also urged Annan to send a representative to Guantanamo to
attend the military hearings as an observer for "the protection of
this child victim of armed conflict."
In October, U.N. Commission on Human Rights special rapporteur
Leandro Despouy presented a report to the General Assembly in which
he took the U.S. government to task for its policy on Guantanamo
prisoners.
In his report, which focused on the independence of judges and
lawyers, Despouy described the continued detention and trial of
suspects at Guantanamo by the U.N. military commission as a
"disturbing development."
"They do not allow appeals to be brought before a civil judge, and
discriminate between national and foreign national among other
things," he said.
Last year, the U.S. government continued to insist that the
"circumstances were not favorable" to honor U.N. requests by several
human rights experts to visit Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and
other detention centers.
In response the U.N. experts said they had decided to conduct an
investigation regardless of whether or not they are allowed to visit
the U.S.-run prisons.
In their appeal to Annan, Wilson and Ahmed drew Annan's attention to
Khadr's case by citing the Optional Protocol to the U.N. Convention
on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed
Conflict and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
(ICC), which declines jurisdiction over any one under the age of 18
at the time of their alleged offenses.
But the U.S. has no obligation to abide by these treaties because it
has not ratified any of them.
The military trial at Guntanamo Bay prison is scheduled to start
Wednesday.
© Copyright 2006 OneWorld.net
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